Jared Kushner claims Saudi Arabia ‘allowed me to speak freely’ as a Jew than some US college campuses

Jared Kushner, the former senior adviser and son-in-law of Donald Trump, has praised Saudi Arabia as a safer place for Jews than some US college campuses. Kushner, who is Jewish himself, made this remark after visiting Saudi Arabia and speaking at a conference.

He said on “Sunday Morning Futures”: “One of the ironies is that, as an American Jew, you’re safer in Saudi Arabia right now than you are on a college campus like Columbia University.” He added that the Saudis “allowed me to speak freely.”

Kushner’s statement comes amid a surge of antisemitic incidents in the US, where some pro-Palestinian protesters have targeted Jewish students on campus.

Columbia University had to delay its Giving Day fundraising last week due to the ongoing tensions over the conflict in Israel. A billionaire donor, Leon Cooperman, has threatened to stop giving money to the university because of the anti-Israel activity by some faculty and students, including a professor who praised the recent Hamas attack on Israel as “awesome.”

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Another incident occurred at Cooper Union in New York City, where Jewish students were trapped inside a library while demonstrators shouted at them from outside.

According to New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn), some of the protesters chanted, “Globalize the intifada from New York to Gaza!”

Kushner has a close relationship with the Saudi regime, which invested $2 billion in his private equity firm after he left the White House. During his tenure in the Trump administration, Kushner played a key role in brokering normalization deals between Israel and some Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

However, Saudi Arabia has not yet agreed to normalize relations with Israel, despite Kushner’s efforts. Public opinion in the UAE and Bahrain is also skeptical of the deals. The Biden administration has tried to continue the diplomatic process, but the recent war between Israel and Hamas has cast doubt on any progress.

Kushner, however, remained hopeful that Saudi Arabia would eventually join the peace initiative.

He said, “Yes, I believe they would like to move forward with the deal with America and with Israel.” He explained that the deal would not only involve a partnership with Israel, but also a deeper alliance with America. He warned that if America is not close to Saudi Arabia, then they would turn to China instead.

“The topic is being discussed,” he added.

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The Biden administration has reportedly considered offering some incentives to Saudi Arabia to persuade them to normalize relations with Israel, such as a mutual defense treaty and nuclear technology for civilian purposes. The mutual defense treaty would mean that both countries would pledge to support each other militarily in case of an attack.

The Biden administration’s stance toward Saudi Arabia has been ambivalent. During his 2020 campaign, Biden suggested that he would treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah state because of its human rights violations, especially the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in Istanbul.

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